I think you bring up some good points. It's easy to point fun at the Kansas schoolboard and the anti-evolutionists or flat earth believers. The opposite extreme can be just as bad though, where people believe anything that they hear as long as it's from someone official-looking with a clipboard and a lab coat.
Doctors and Scientists flip flop on health issues all the time. Eating eggs are bad for you. No, wait, they're good for you. Ooops, I was right the first time, they really are bad for you. Dumping these chemicals here is completely safe. This building is earthquake proof. That boat will never sink. If you keep using your forehead as a bludgeoning device, you could get brain damage.
Well okay, maybe that last one was valid after all. Anyway...
The scientific process is fluid and imperfect and people like to pretend that once a study comes out, it must be true. Creating a society that accepts scientific conclusions without understanding them (at least a little) is dangerous, especially when the funding for some of these studies comes from a very biased source that's got a financial stake in the results. Questioning facts and data is a part of the process, and understanding the issues rather than taking it on faith is really the whole point.
Doctors and Scientists flip flop on health issues all the time. Eating eggs are bad for you. No, wait, they're good for you. Ooops, I was right the first time, they really are bad for you. Dumping these chemicals here is completely safe. This building is earthquake proof. That boat will never sink. If you keep using your forehead as a bludgeoning device, you could get brain damage.
Well okay, maybe that last one was valid after all. Anyway...
The scientific process is fluid and imperfect and people like to pretend that once a study comes out, it must be true. Creating a society that accepts scientific conclusions without understanding them (at least a little) is dangerous, especially when the funding for some of these studies comes from a very biased source that's got a financial stake in the results. Questioning facts and data is a part of the process, and understanding the issues rather than taking it on faith is really the whole point.
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